Avalanche News

Draft Saturday, Avs To Pick 18th (Watch Live On OLN)

by
Staff Writer
/ Colorado Avalanche

The Colorado Avalanche will be one of only 11 teams with a pick in each of the first three rounds when the 2006 NHL Entry Draft takes place today in Vancouver, B.C. The 44th annual hockey draft gets underway at 4:00 p.m. Mountain Time, with coverage of the entire first round shown on OLN.

Colorado will select 18th overall in the first round, giving the club its highest draft pick since 2000. In fact, since the team moved to Denver in 1995, only three times have the Avs had a higher draft choice, Vaclav Nedorost in 2000 (14th overall) and Alex Tanguay (12th) and Martin Skoula (17th) in 1998.

"The success of the organization at the draft is very important, especially in the new NHL," said Avalanche Chief Scout Jim Hammett. "Like it has always been in the past, our organization is committed to building for the future around athletes with speed, skill and character. We are very excited about our position in this year's draft and will look to continue adding depth to our system."

Per rules of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, the draft will now feature only seven rounds this year. In addition to its first round pick, Colorado also holds one second round choice (51st), as well as a third round (81st), fifth round (141st), sixth round (171st) and seventh round (201st).

The Avalanche will be without its fourth round selection, which was traded to Chicago in exchange for Jim Dowd on March 9, 2006.

The following is the current order of selection for the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, Saturday, June 24 at General Motors Place in Vancouver (6 p.m. ET, OLN, TSN, RDS).